Southwoods extends PAL Interclub lead

CEBU CITY—Manila Southwoods showed the depth of its talents on Friday, posting 127 points at Club Filipino de Cebu in the penultimate round of the 74th Philippine Amateur Men’s Interclub golf team championships.

Three players scored in the thirties, led by Masaichi Otake’s 34, as Southwoods pulled away with 401 points going into the final day at the Cebu Country Club on Saturday.

Otake, bouncing back from a pedestrian 29 on Friday, bucked three pickups with an eagle and four birdies to fuel Southwoods’ assault.

Ryan Monsalve and Shinichi Suzuki added 33 and 32, respectively. One of the 28 of Kristoffer Arevalo and Lanz William Uy counted.

Despite the 19-point lead over Eastridge, Southwoods captain Thirdy Escano was disappointed over his team’s lackluster score.

“Any score below 130 is unacceptable,” said Escano who gave his players a piece of his mind. “This is not the score that we trained hard for. It seemed the players were just contented beating their flight mates.”

Escano said he wanted his players to excel and become successful pros someday like Tom Kim and Yuto Katsuragawa.

“How can we achieve that if we score poorly?” he asked.

Setting aside his disappointment, Escano said he can now sleep soundly after staving off the initial challenge posed by Eastridge.

The Binangonan-based squad posted 120 points, drawing 31 from Tonton Asistio, the 30s from Timothy Clark Co and Ronel Tagaan, and 29 from Loyd Labrador.

On 382, Eastridge leads CCC by six points.

Carl Almario and Jacob Cajita each scored 34 points to lead CCC which matched Eastridge’s output. Bayani Garcia and Jufil Sato counted with 28 and 24, respectively.

Del Monte also struggled with 119 to bring its total to 359. Scoring for the team were Raul Minoza 31, Mark Ivan Parilla 30, Julius Langamin 30 and Enzo Fregil 28.

In the hotly-contested Founders division, the Orchard took a two-point lead over Riviera and Alabang after tallying 115 points.

Tae Won Kim and Young Sook Kim posted 31 and 30, respectively as the Orchard hiked its total to 340.

Riviera was led by Patrick Gene Tambalque who turned in 33 points while Alabang leaned on a pair of 29s from Justin Tambunting and Wan Soo Kim.

AFTER doing the rounds of different national teams, sports associations and training venues and meeting stakeholders over the past weeks, the Philippine Sports Commission, board led by chairman Richard Bachmann, bared that plans for a consolidated national sports calendar and efforts to create more comprehensive grassroots sports programs to produce world-class athletes are in the works.

“We have to continue to cultivate the grass roots in order to feed the elite level with fresh talents,” said Bachmann, who is also batting for a consolidated national sports calendar.

“We do not have a lot of resources so a consolidated calendar would help us all avoid duplications, overlaps and allow us to prepare better.”

This week, Bachmann, together with his PSC Commissioners Edward Hayco, Olivia “Bong’’ Coo and Walter Torres visited Cebu and sat down with the Cebu City Sports Commission, Cebu City Local School Board in Labangon Elementary

School and Cebu City Sports Center, observing different local sports which trace their roots in the country’s oldest city.

The PSC officials also took part in the launching of the Guinness world attempt for the largest rhythmic gymnastics hula hoop workout. They also graced the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the PSC Regional Training Center for weightlifting, which was also attended by Tokyo Olympian and Southeast Asian Games medalist Elreen Ando.

The Carreta, Cebu City native is a current member of the Philippine weightlifting team and a product of Batang Pi- noy (Philippine Youth Games), one of the PSC’s long-time centerpiece grassroots programs. The PSC is also set to establish satel- lite offices all over the country to make sure the national sports agency has point persons to oversee the grassroots program in their respective areas.